IT WAS the publication of the Communist Manifesto in 1848 and, subsequently, Capital in 1867 that explained that, as capitalism was born within its predecessor, the feudal system, so it is with socialism — it is born within the capitalist system.

As capitalism evolved, its productive force would come into conflict with its relations of production, and at an advanced stage of its development, proletarian revolution would overthrow the capitalist order and establish socialism.

Communists thus looked to the advanced industrial countries in Europe for such revolutions and they were not disappointed with workers’ rebellions and revolutions that took place across Europe in the early and mid-19th century. There were the Luddites, 1811-13, the Merthyr Tydfil armed insurrection in 1831, the Swing Riots in 1830 by agricultural workers in southern and eastern England, and of course the European revolutions of 1848.

This culminated in the Paris Commune in 1871, and the declaration of a workers’ government. Marx did not think the time was ripe for the French proletariat to take over, because capitalism was not advanced enough and the contradictions not heightened to such a degree to provide the ground for a workers’ state. However, once the Communards took power, Marx gave them his full support. The Paris Commune lasted just over two months, from March 18 to May 28. Marx may have been right after all, the conditions for socialism were not ripe. 

Lenin jettisoned all of this with his theory of the weakest link (no relation to the popular quiz TV show of the same name). He argued that under its imperialist stage, with the export of capital and the division of the world among capitalist countries, capitalism has entered a new phase bringing into its ambit what was referred to as peripheral countries, that is countries with pre-capitalist mode of production.

This created an all-encompassing chain, a breach in one link of the chain would bring about the collapse of the whole chain initiating a proletarian revolution in the advanced capitalist world. A breach will take place in the non-industrial world where the links are weak. He went on to identify Russia as the weakest link in the chain.

However, the Bolshevik revolution did not bring about a proletarian revolution in the industrial world. The chain that Lenin talked about was not so much a chain, with individual loops linked together, as it was a mesh, with several interlaced loops held up by a foundation cable composed of powerful links, much like a fishing net. For the net to collapse, a breach of those powerful links was necessary.

When the working class in the industrial West failed to conform to the weakest link theory, Lenin claimed the industrial working class had been corrupted by the capitalists who used their “superprofits” (a distinctly un-Marxist concept) to bribe them. In short, the working class could not be trusted — an uncanny anticipation of Bertolt Brecht’s 1953 satirical poem suggesting the government “dissolve the people and elect another.”

The industrial working class was written off; wage increases extracted from employers through bitter struggles were dismissed as bribes — if class contradictions could be so easily smoothed over by a few pieces of silver, it would indeed be the end of history. As for those workers whose skills attracted a higher pay than the average, reflecting the value of their labour power, they were labelled aristocrats, a distinct reversal of the evolutionary process of capitalism outlined in the Communist Manifesto whereby the highly skilled, “the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, [are converted] into paid wage-labour.” 

This view constituted a major shift in Marxist orientation. The socialist revolution would no longer arise out of the most developed forms of capitalism where the economic contradictions and the exploitation of the working class would be greatest. The centre of gravity for proletarian revolution moved away from the core capitalist countries to the peripheral and semi-peripheral. National liberation struggles, anti-colonial rebellions and wars for independence took centre stage. Ho Chi Minh tried to restore the balance, telling visiting US students who asked what should they do to support the struggle of the Vietnamese people to “go home and have a revolution.” 

These anti-colonial and national liberation movements were so widespread that it prompted Mao Zedong to declare “revolution is the main trend”; and it was, but not of the proletarian socialist type. Chief among those revolutionary trends were the victory over the Kuomintang in China and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, and the historic defeat of US imperialism at the hands of the Vietnamese people in 1975. The latter was expected to usher in a sea change in the proletarian revolution, but it did not. For the imperialist powers, it was but a temporary setback. 

As for China, the attempt at creating a socialist economy was thwarted when Deng Xiaoping said, “It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice.” Today, the CPC describes the Chinese economy as socialist with Chinese characteristics. With three thriving stock exchanges (not counting Hong Kong’s), one of which, the Shanghai Stock Exchange, is the third largest in the world, China would more accurately be described as capitalist with Chinese characteristics. You can’t have a proletarian revolution without a proletarian majority.

This is not to dismiss the huge achievements of the Soviet Union and China; both aimed to leapfrog a pre-capitalist economy into socialism. The former performed miracles in industrial advances and agricultural reforms, excelled in science and technology, sending the first satellite circling the globe and the first man into space, and above all defeated Hitler’s army, saving the world from the Nazi menace. China, through a state-planned economy, succeeded in building a thriving, growing economy which today stands second only to the US, lifting millions out of poverty in the process. 

We should take heed of Ho Chi Minh’s advice and reverse the trend in which solidarity with other peoples’ struggles occupies a large bandwidth of Marxist, communist and general politics of the left. 

Bringing about socialism is a practical issue. It goes beyond shouting slogans and making speeches. For us here in Britain, it means rebuilding the industrial base of the country that was purposely and systematically dismantled by the Thacher and subsequent governments in favour of a globalised world in which Britain would provide services and leave manufacturing to others.

At a time when capitalism is embroiled in one of its periodic spasms of self-destruction, rebuilding becomes a revolutionary act in the same way that the Factory Acts of the 19th century were. And it is a fortunate coincidence that the Starmer government’s declared intention is to do precisely that — rebuild.

In this effort, the trade unions have a central part to play, which the TUC has rightly adopted. Others, not so much. A planned national conference on the NHS was cancelled recently because it clashed with a hastily arranged national demonstration on Palestine. 

Comrades! Our priorities must change.